Congrats on the launch. I haven't heard of other businesses approaching the market, with similar angles (fresh, non-GMO). There's a trend now for boutique food brands - maybe you can ride this wave well. Goodluck to you again!
Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
221–230 of 454 posts
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"The sodium comes from the traditional Indian spices used in each dish so it's an intricate process to adjust the levels and keep the same quality and taste." The majority of Indian spices are mostly single element spices - cumin, coriander, fennel, fenugreek, garlic etc. Even Garam Masala probably the most widely used multi-spice doesn't contain any salt. Could you elaborate on which "traditional" Indian spices hav…
Sorry for the confusion! I meant to specify that the traditional spices like you mentioned contain sodium, not salt. We include red and green chillies, homemade garam masala, ginger, etc. all of which add up to increased amounts of sodium in the product. We are working on lowering sodium in each product while maintaining the taste and flavor.
That doesn't seem right, the sodium content of fresh chilies(red or green) and ginger are actually quite negligible even for an entire tablespoon. See:
https://www.eatthismuch.com/food/view/green-chillies,139995/
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#223If you plan on targeting the college market, I would focus the pitch on parents rather than students.
For a student, the alternative is to go to McDonald's and spend $8, or to go to an on-campus cafeteria.
For a parent, the alternative is to take a whole day (or more) to visit their child and bring a home-cooked meal in the trunk of their car (or on the train/plane/etc). At that price point, $24 is a steal. And the price of a "proper" dinner kit is probably on par with gift baskets the universities sell full of junk food/cake/candy/flowers/fruit salad.
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#224Hi! As a South Indian and knowing something about how commissary kitchens work and having studied the NRI market base, I would strongly advise you to pivot. You cannot compete with packaged foods wrt price point. You must also have something unique with no competitors. This market is too crowded. You had me at rasam and buttermilk..it’s because of the radar kinship, I want you to succeed. If you are interested, I can…
If they target people like me that absolutely will not eat even trace amounts of fructose, they might get somewhere. Our options are quite limited - most restaurants are absolutely terrible about putting sugar in food.
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#225How is this any different from MTR's line of products?[1] And given that MTR's products cost just $2.50 per pack where I currently live, $24 isn't exactly cheap. I haven't tasted your product, but I have tasted the MTR ones and they seem pretty authentic. And MTR being a very old, traditional brand, it's as authentic as it gets. Would love to hear about your differentiation strategy. [1] https://www.mtrfoods.com/prod…
It wasn't clear from the home page that $24 is for "one meal that serves 3-4 people".
If it doesn't greatly increase the price of packaging for your product, you may want to experiment with showing pictures of (and sending) food in single-serving packages (so instead of sending five-six packets, you'd send 15-24 of them).
Another option is to go with a "Home Chef" style pitch -- basically saying "here's a dinner date night for two in a box".
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#226I think you should consider your addressable market to be greater than Indian expats - I'm a Brit and I miss my curry living here as much as anyone from India! Two quick thoughts: 1) I don't get your branding, especially the company name, and especially as all of your meals are vegan. 2) Shipping meat-based meals is presumably a very different and more expensive logistical challenge so I get the reason why there's no…
>I think you should consider your addressable market to be greater than Indian expats - I'm a Brit
I don't know. I'm not Indian either, and I was drawn to it in part because it wasn't advertised to westerners.
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> MTR provides just the spices, you have to bring everything else. This includes vegetables/meat, seasoning, additional spices, oil/salt, etc. Our products include all of this so that the only ingredient you add is water which makes it much more convenient. Sorry, this is not accurate. If I buy an MTR Sambhar rice, or Paneer masala, everything is included. I just need to heat it and eat it. > Our packets are 100% fre…
> seems like there isn't much difference between ordering from a decent Indian restaurant and you guys I know it seems absurd on HN, but there are people who live in areas without decent Indian restaurants.
Coming from small-town Missouri and having traveled very little even within the US, I had literally never heard of any specific Indian dish (authentic or not) until I moved to San Francisco. I had no idea what naan or chicken tikka masala were until my company in SF ordered some.
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#228As a non-Indian who enjoys Indian food, I'd be interested in this. However, if you want to market to non-Indians I'd suggest putting the dish description outside of the "Details" dropdown and up where the more general description is. Or start with the "Details" section expanded. Or rename "Details" to something else that lets you know that is where the more detailed description of the flavors is.
Thank you for your feedback!
No problem. Feel free to reach out if you want to send me some samples for White-Guy Taste Testing. :)
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting question. Answer: The former. However, there is another product loosely called buttermilk by some, here. It is just curd (Indian term for yoghurt) diluted with water and maybe stirred or whisked a bit to mix up the water well with the curd. If you can't get the former, you can easily make this with curd you have at home. The real buttermilk is usually salted slightly. The one made from curd can be had eit…
It would be fun to taste. The buttermilk I have tried in USA is bitter and tastes acidic.
Interesting. Could be because it is somewhat stale, maybe. (Was it bought from stores, what you tried?) Same happens in India. Fresh home-made buttermilk tastes good, from just after being made up to say 24 hours or so. After that it does get more acidic, particularly in warmer weather or if not kept in the fridge, although I might call it sour instead. Not found it tasting bitter though, as I remember. Could be you had bad luck and it was quite old stock.
Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes
#230You are feeding into the irrational fear of GMO. I'm not interested.